Monday, July 27

When our Realtor told us that our townhouse buyer wanted to have our kitchen appliances included in the sale, I said, "HAHAHAHAHA! SUCKA!" She probably heard, "I guess that would be OK." Either way, BUH-BYE!

While the appliances were fairly new (we replaced everything when we remodeled the kitchen five years ago), I hated them. Especially the fridge. It was a good fridge in theory, but in reality, it was evil. We found it at a Sears Outlet for less than half the regular price because it had a huge scratch on the right side, which just so happened to be the side that was up against a wall in our kitchen. It's problem was that it defined "self defrosting" as "melt the frost and then pee it all over the kitchen floor." Seriously, every single day there was a puddle by the thing. We tried and tried to get it fixed and finally ended up just letting a towel live on the floor in the "pee" spot.

So long, pissy fridge!

Of course the new house didn't come with appliances since the people who lost the house to foreclosure took everything that wasn't nailed down (and sometimes even that). I didn't think that was going to be an issue. We would run to the Sears Outlet, sell a kidney or two, and return home with a new stove and fridge.

I'm so over-optimistic sometimes.

For two months we kept an eye out for a decent deal. For two months all we saw were things that were either WAY too expensive, or WAY too beat up. I had thought we would already have the appliances before we moved, but we totally didn't. Then I thought we would just run out after we did the closings and return home with a fridge and stove, but we totally didn't. Finally, we spent an entire day running from store to store looking for something, anything, that we could live with.

Nothing. Anywhere.

Until Mr. Husband thought to check out That Place Where Geeks work. I happen to despise that place, but it turns out that I really, really, really can't live without a fridge. I could go months without a stove, but one day without a fridge was enough to make me cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. It was worth a try.

We walked into That Store Where the Geeks Work, and immediately I spotted a perfect stove. It just so happened to be a scratch and dent and was marked down $700. SCORE! That left us with the all important fridge.

I stared.

I paced.

I compared.

I couldn't make a decision.

When at last I did finally make a choice (You'll note--that's "I" and not "we." Mr. Husband would have nothing to do with the actually deciding. BAH!), the one I picked turned out to be on backorder. Of course. We could wait two weeks, or I could go pick a different fridge.

I was so frustrated I said I would just go check more stores. Brilliant, I know.

I spent most of last Monday searching all of Greater Pittsburgh for a decent deal on a fridge, and NOTHING. It's like everybody saw me coming and rushed to hide anything priced under $1K in stainless. (I have a weird thing about spending a lot on a fridge--all it does is keep my food cold. I don't need fancy. Just pretty.) (Pittsburghers, please don't list stores I should have checked in comments. Trust me, I went to every. single. one of them. I get irritated with myself just thinking about how much time I wasted.)

At the end of it all, I ended up back at That Place Where the Geeks Work. I went over budget and just grabbed the first semi-pretty fridge I could find.

We didn't really want the responsibility of getting the appliances across the just-replaced wood floors without damaging them, so I shelled out the $30 for delivery, which was scheduled for last Thursday.

Except, somehow the fridge ended up under my name and the stove under Mr. Husband's, so That Place Where the Geeks Work got confused and thought it was OK to split up the deliveries. From there, it was a short trip to them deciding to deliver the stove early. A full day early.

Whatever, I dealt with it. The stove delivery was scheduled between 12:30 and 2:30, so I quickly sped home with the idea of using my lunch break to open the door and let people give me an appliance. 12:30 turned to 1:30 without any sign of installers, so that lunch break extended a bit. 1:30 turned into 2:15, and then the delivery guy called. They were running late, but would be delivering the stove within an hour.

Fine. I waited.

3:30 rolled around and I started to get antsy. 4:15 rolled around and I started to panic. Alexis has dance class on Wednesdays, and hell hath no fury like a kid who is forced to skip dance class. I waited ten more minutes and then called and left a message canceling the delivery, saying I absolutely HAD to leave.

At 5:30, the delivery guy called and said they were at our house. He didn't seem all that happy that I wasn't.

I think that's why he hid our stove. For real.

Thursday morning, the fridge showed up within the scheduled delivery window. But, the stove, which was supposed to have found its way into the same truck, was nowhere to be found. When I say "nowhere to be found," I mean people were saying, "CRAP! Where did it go?"

I finally decided to just go to work and figured they would find the stove eventually. Just as I pulled out of the daycare parking lot to head for my office, they called. Of course. The delivery truck with my stove on board was a mere 20 minutes from the house (allegedly). Meanwhile, I was 30 minutes away. I didn't let on to my little dilemma, and instead just thanked the delivery dude for calling.

Miraculously, I beat him to the house. By an hour and a half. I guess some guys not only use a different ruler, they also use a different clock.

Whatever. They showed up with my stove.

And proceeded to make me insanely sporky. As in, I was ready to dig out my titanium spork and put one of the delivery guys out of his misery. He was a mouth breather. I cannot handle mouth breathers. And when I say he was a mouth breather, I mean he made Darth Vader seem like a silent kind of guy. I felt like I should look around for the ventilator because there was NO WAY someone could possibly breath that loudly.

I managed to hide a good 50-feet away while Mr Vader fussed with the stove. Of course the thing wouldn't just slide into place, so it took him a solid hour to get everything connected and happy. In the meantime, the dogs were blocked in the basement, so Meg was going nuts. She kept making her ridiculous whiny Bully noises, perfectly countered by Vader Installer.

25 comments:

If it's any consolation, they are really, really pretty! Alexis must be one great kid . . . my kids would wipe their hands up and down the stove and the fridge leaving smuges a miles long, and then my head would explode. (And you are now the second blog today that has forced me to realize that I am an OCD freak.)

Wow what an ordeal! We're the ones who say "we aren't paying for delivery" and then at the end of wrestling with whatever giant item we purchased, swear to just pay for someone else to do it next time. Which we never do!

Hmmm...stainless backsplash? Might be easier than trying to match the paint. And the molding.

We got our replacement fridge for the old house at the place where the geeks work. Amazingly, they've jacked up the prices on pretty much everything except the appliances. New house came with the applicances. No peeing fridge yet....

@Danielle--Mr. Husband loaths that green with the intensity of a 1000 suns. His loathing is not at all assisted by the fact that the bulkheads above the cabinets are mustard yellow, or the fact that they just randomly stopped painting when they got to the end of the cabinets. The whole thing has to be painted. The bad news is that is the only area that I can't pick a color for. I have *no* idea what I want.

And yeah, That Place Where the Geeks Work is shockingly reasonable for appliances. Everything else has jacked up prices, but the appliances are definitely cheaper. That fridge was $400 less there than it was at Lowe's (who wouldn't price match because they suck and don't carry stainless in the store).

Okay. Here's a story that is sort of related but not really. Once, dish network was scheduled to come out to my house because we'd lost one of our satellite signals. We still had some channels, but not all of them, so they needed to come and fix it.

So Mr. Dish Network dude is scheduled to arrive in between 8 and 12. He shows up at 5:30. He stands in my yard for five seconds, then says,

"You need to cut down that tree. Sign here, please."

Ummm, do you want to maybe get on the roof and see if that massively huge beautiful poplar tree is the problem? Maybe you could move the dish over a little bit to avoid the interference?

"No. You need to cut down that there tree. It's the only solution."

Um, right.

So I signed, and then I called dish network back and asked for a new guy cause the first one was an idiot.

A new guy came, on time, and moved my dish. I still have my poplar tree.

Some people are idiots.

the end.

(see? I told it wasn't really related. I only thought of it cause your delivery guys were late, and so was dish network guy. A crazy leap, I know.)

@Pocklock--You can totally lick the stove. It was less than $600 because it was clearance and scratched (the scratch is on the black part on the bottom--you know, where Meg will probably chew a hole in it anyway). I am in looooove with that stove. So in loooooove, I'm thinking of not ever using it.

Hate deliveries. When we were having our washer and dryer delivered to this house, I was left waiting in an empty house, 7 months pregnant, with a bored 18 month old to entertain. They gave me a window of 12-5 (thanks - that was helpful) and still didn't make it. They arrived at 5:25.

I think we have the same fridge, but the previous owners at our place broke, sold, or took the trays with them. We just now ordered them (a year later). Apparently I would rather complain constantly about biting into bad fruit.

Lowe's once made me take a whole vacation day for the delivery of our dishwasher because they didn't show up in their window. And I had almost ZERO vacation time back then. I flipped out so bad, we got a $50 gift card. Damn right, suckers.

Not that I make $50 a day. Because then, I should just look into stripping. Who am I kidding, I couldn't make $50 in a month if I were a stripper. My big boobs need a bra to stay in their proper place, ya know? I'd probably end up knocking out all the customers with them as I twirled around the pole.

Uhm... Sidetracked. What was my point?

Oh yeah. I hate mouth breathers as much as I hate people who snort snot back up instead of blowing their nose. And I always ALWAYS sit next to one or the other on long plane rides. Where I practically weep from feeling my mind fall into a dark abyss of insanity.

@Mac Girlie--Indeed, they did ignore that whole thing where it's stupid to run a vent if the air just gets forced back out where it came from. I did it at our old house, too, but that was because it was a cheap little townhouse and it seemed silly to spend a bunch of money getting the vent done correctly. But here? Ridiculous not to.